Unread Essay
by ElizaSchorn
Summary: Tim Drake is having one of those days.


_A/N…Again, wrote this ages ago, haven't done anything with it. Tell me what you think. By the way, I found Tim's middle name off Wikipedia. I love Wikipedia. It has all the missing information when certain libraries neglect to carry recent issues. _

My name is Timothy Jackson Drake Wayne. What a mouthful, huh? I was late for school again today. No surprises there. My job tends to precipitate being late for everything. Didn't help that I got in at three o'clock in the morning. Or that my alarm-clock decided not to work, causing only the sun-light from my window to wake me up at 7:50, making me catapult myself out of bed, using words I would never dare use around Alfred. My bipolar alarm-clock also ensured that I got up late enough to have to roof-hop to school, which almost guaranteed that I run across an early-rising nutcase, or something. Which I did. Bank robbery. Fun, fun, fun.

When I managed to finally get to school, and had a chance to look at my watch, I knew that Bruce was going to have to send in some kind of official excuse for me; I was that late. He'd probably say it was a dentist appointment, or that he fell out of his yacht _again_, and I had to visit him in the hospital, so that's what I'll tell the teachers. I ran down the nearly deserted hallway toward my next class, catching snatches of conversation from the students I whizzed by.

"…there goes Drake…"

"…and Mr. Hackett said I have to do the whole thing over, it's sooo not fair…"

"…totally through with him…"

"Yo, watch it, man…"

I skid to a stop outside English and try to catch my breath. No such luck. Mrs. Billinger must have been waiting for me, because the door swings open and she stands right there, glowering and trying to look intimidating. I say trying, although I know she's pretty good at scaring everyone else. It's only me that isn't fazed by it. I think she knows it too. Only makes her grumpier.

I give her my best "disarming" smile. The one Dick taught me. It doesn't work. She points in wordless frustration, and I slink to the back of the room to deposit myself at a desk and my stuff under my chair. It's shaping up to be a long day.

I picked up my "punishment-for-being-late-I-don't-care-what-excuse- you-have-this-time" assignment today, and guess what it was? _"Write an essay telling the_ _class what you want to accomplish when you leave high-school."_ A freaking "What do you want to be when you grow up, Johnny?" essay!

Well, what do I want to be when I grow up? There's a loaded question for you. Let's start with my normal like then. If you can call it that.

I'm the adopted son of Bruce Wayne, brother by fire- if not by blood- to Dick Grayson and Cassandra Cain. The three of us have never really needed to have a job, seeing as how we are the joint heirs to a billion dollar company. Wayne Enterprises has been going strong for years, and it's not likely to disappear any time soon. Unless another Crisis comes along and manages to erase all traces of Gotham; but that's another story.

If I had to pick a job outside of Wayne Enterprises, I'd probably pick something like being a reporter; or maybe a gymnastics teacher like Dick.

That's what I'd choose if I just had to worry about handing this paper in. But it's not that simple. I have another side to my life –a double life, you might call it. You see, Bruce Wayne may be a billionaire, entrepreneur, and so-called "playboy", along with other things, but very few people know the truth.

Bruce Wayne is Batman. I'm Robin. Yeah, the one with the latest incarnation of the Teen Titans, formerly of Young Justice, who got rid of the green and yellow on the uniform. That Robin.

That's why I'm probably not going to pick a definite career path. I mean, who has time for showing up for work (on time) every day, writing articles for a paper, and taking care of an entire city? Oh, that's right, Clark does.

But I'm not Superman, and I don't play him on TV. Dick has had the Superman mentality a few times, and it's gotten him in trouble.

But back to the subject at hand. I'm not going to have time for a job. Come on, think about it. Last week, Poison Ivy and her plants wrecked a whole bunch of floors at Wayne Enterprises. Talk about attacking someone's base of operations. (Although she didn't know that.) And right now, the Titans are working over-time to take down Deathstroke the Terminator. Again. Oh, and Bruce and I had to take care of the Joker a few nights ago, and he's back in Arkham for the, let me see…fifty-second time? It might be nice if Arkham's "defense attorneys" wised up and took the revolving doors out of the legal system. Even I lose track of how many times those lunatics get out.

And to add to all this nonsense, Jason Todd is driving us all up the wall. Calls himself the Red Hood one day, impersonates Dick as Nightwing the next, attacks me wearing a version of my old uniform and calls me a "pretender" to the name of Robin, then travels to an alternate reality where that world's Bruce Wayne (who was a psychotic himself) gives him yet another uniform and takes to calling him Red Robin… The man cannot pick an original identity. Next, he'll try impersonating Bruce, which won't be smart at all. Bruce takes it a wee bit more personally than Dick when it comes to people trying to oust him.

In the end, I'm not going to send in this essay, since it's full of secrets that governments the world over haven't been able to figure out. I'll keep it though, encrypt it, bury it in the backyard of computers, and take it out years from now, like a digital time capsule. Years from now, when secret identities will no doubt be a thing of the past. I'll send it over to my high-school teachers, along with all the _real_ excuse notes for why I missed practically a third of my four years of high-school. That ought to make them laugh.

As for me, I'd better get started on my real essay and figure out how to explain to Bruce why he has to wear casts on both legs when we're in public.

I blurted out the yacht excuse to Mrs. Billinger.


End file.
